I had a great time marching in Westminster’s entry in the pride parade the other weekend. The focus of our entry was our upcoming name change from Westminster College to Westminster University, so we got Westminster University shirts and drawstring bags and signs to wave around, and here’s what all the pictures look like. Look at all these happy people happily waving happy signs with happy rainbow flags!

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Let’s take a look at one more image, and specifically I’d like to draw your attention to the hint of the sign you can see over the head of the woman in the foreground:

one more picture from the pride parade

Gasp! Is that – could that be – a protest sign???

Yep, that’s my deliberately spicy sign, and that’s the only one of the 52 pictures distributed to us by our marketing and communication department that shows my sign at all. Fortunately my husband took some better pictures a little later in the parade:

me holding a sign that reads "trans people are in danger"

me holding a sign that reads "it's not a phobia, it's just fascism"

These signs were pretty well-received at the parade – just, y’know, not by the Westminster marketing and communication department, I guess.

Pride is a protest and always has been. The first pride march was a riot, involving people dropping brick-laden handbags through the windshields of oppressors. It’s nice to see corporations and universities marching in pride parades, but I guess I always wish that those bigger institutions would take more meaningful action than just drenching their regular logos in rainbows for a couple of hours.

I’d like more institutions to take the Disney track and actually go to bat against fascist laws. I’d like more corporations to make financial decisions based on the climate of the states they operate in. I’d like to see CEOs and university presidents testifying in state houses against anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-trans legislation.

However, in the meantime, I guess I’ll just tie my bear flag around my shoulders and hoist a sign myself.

Very belated update (January 29, 2024): Today I happened to find out that there’s a shiny marcomm video of our presence in the pride march on our university website. My sign is visible for a little under half a second.